


Ye Gods!

by Starralyse



Series: Ye Gods! [1]
Category: Days of Our Lives
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/M, Gods as voyeurs, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Humour, M/M, Pagan Gods, Roman mythology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-04-18
Packaged: 2018-03-23 13:43:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3770428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starralyse/pseuds/Starralyse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bacchus, the (usually drunken) God of Wine and Revels, and Eros, the (usually manipulative) God of Love, are two immortal pagan gods who interfere with the mortal lives of  Will, Sonny, Gabi, Brian and Paul, to score against each other in their ongoing feud.<br/>It is told from the point of view of Bacchus (original character). The Salem characters and events are strongly canon influenced.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ye Gods!

**Author's Note:**

> It helps me to imagine Bacchus as being played by Brian (or original Chad), and Eros as being played by Will. Not a happy Wilson fic. I probably shouldn't have put so much new character set-up at the top, but once you get through that, the Salem fun starts.

For a god, Bacchus liked to think he was a very chill dude.

 

Life was a party, man, and there was nothing wrong with that.

 

But you would think, from Eros' snarky comments, that he was some kind of underachieving buffoon, the way that the  _God of Love_ , with his thin gravelly voice and ice-cold blue eyes, made mock of him on Mount Olympus. As if he was some kind of half-witted backwater yokel from the Earthly realms, and not a god himself - worshipped and revered by millions. 

 

He is the God of Wine and Revels, _peons._

 

Look it up.

 

Bacchus thinks that part of the reason for Eros' enmity is pure jealousy on Eros' part. 

 

In earlier times, even before he was named Dionysus, Bacchus had been a minor god, a god of wine and hard spirits, but when the Romans came, his deification took on a whole new aspect and a groundswell of new worshippers joined his ranks.

 

Who would have thought that those crazy old Romans would have taken to his aspect of _sex_ quite so keenly, or with so much abandon? Bacchus had always considered the aspect of _sex_ secondary to his whole skill set. Put simply, Bacchus was the god you went to when you wanted to have a _good time_.

 

The Romans went bat-shit crazy with wine and sex. There were wine and cheese nights (and orgies) happening right and left. 

 

The god decided to keep the name Bacchus. It was much better than Dionysus. _(Anything would be)._

 

Eros didn't do so well under the Romans. They renamed him Cupid, which he didn't like _\- at all -_ and made him a teenager again, with a dinky silver bow set, and the power of First Love. When he shot people with his arrows, they would fall instantly and powerfully in love. 

 

But the Italians tended to forget Cupid and move on to their other Gods quite quickly. They took to the gods of fertility, wine, harvests, hearth, and family, with great gusto - and Cupid was left in the dust. As many of the other gods rose during the Roman era, Cupid kept stubbornly to his Greek name of Eros and refused to change. 

 

When the Renaissance came, he was represented as a chubby little baby in a swaddling blanket with a baby button of a dick - and Bacchus had laughed at that. How could he not? He was the God of Revels after all. That was his nature. 

 

But that was when his feud with Eros really started. 

 

And that was the start of Bacchus' fall.

 

It all began when Eros set him up... 

 

\----

 

Usually, Bacchus doesn't interfere much with the life of mortals, but one night, he is invited out on a pub crawl with Pan and Eros to a little backwater Earth realm called Salem. (In retrospect Eros' presence ought to have made him immediately suspicious, but he was already very, very drunk, and Pan was usually up for a good time).

 

Eros takes them both to an inn, where a golden-haired youth is drowning his sorrows with spirits.

 

Bacchus shakes his head sadly. He is doing it _all wrong_. 

 

Pan says, _"I_ _know_ , tragic waste of alcohol, isn't it?"

 

Eros, with his sexy, gravelly voice, whispers in Bacchus' ear. "The mortal is sad because he caught his new love with another."

 

The youth stumbles out of the inn - it is called _The Brady Pub_ \- and Eros and Pan follow him, Pan playing his flute all the while. The dreamy notes pull Bacchus in their wake.

 

The mortal stumbles into a beautiful dark-haired young woman leaving her apartment, making her drop her things. 

 

"Gabi! I'm so sorry!" he says, helping her pick up her belongings.

 

Bacchus is already bored. "Get it over with, Eros, and do your arrow thingie, so we can go and get another drink. I'm parched."

 

"I cannot," says Eros wistfully. "I have already shot Will and Gabi with my arrow. They have already had their first love."

 

"Shame," says Pan. "They would have had beautiful babies."

 

Bacchus snorts. What is it with fertility gods and babies anyway? _Weird._  

 

"Look at how they're made for each other," says Eros woefully. "If only someone could help them get together - someone with more power than I have with this useless little trinket!"

 

Eros throws his bow and arrow to the ground.

 

" _Dude_ ," says Bacchus, patting Eros' back consolingly. "It will be all right."

 

They are in Gabi's apartment now, watching the pair commiserate over the sad state of their love lives. 

 

"If only they would just kiss," says Eros. "Maybe it would rekindle their love!"

 

"Yeah," says Bacchus, feeling the alcohol and Pan's flute working on his spirit-addled brain. He wobbles a bit.

 

 _"Just kiss!"_ Bacchus says dreamily.

 

Will and Gabi kiss. 

 

Bacchus' sex aspect flares to life. Suddenly Will and Gabi are making out passionately; rolling on the bed, pulling at each other's clothes and touching each other intimately.

 

Pan rocks on his cloven feet gleefully, chanting, "Babies! Babies!"

 

Even Eros looks mildly interested. 

 

For a sex deity, Bacchus has always found the _Love God_  to be strangely cold. 

 

For a moment, Bacchus wonders why Eros didn't initiate the sexual congress between this couple himself. Then that thought slides out of his head as he finds himself back at _The Brady Pub_  with Pan and Eros.

 

Eros is gleeful. 

 

"Drinks for everyone!" he says, turning to the barkeep and ordering a keg of their finest stout ale.

 

The woman behind the bar asks if he is over eighteen.

 

"Of course," says Eros. 

 

She refuses to serve him unless he shows her his ID.

 

Eros becomes enraged.

 

Bacchus and Pan share a glance and snicker in the background. (Eros' tantrums are legendary).

 

\----

 

When he returns to Mount Olympus, Bacchus sleeps off his hangover, gets another one, and sleeps off that one as well.

 

It is days before he realises what has happened.

 

Athena, who is usually a pretty cool chick, looks down at him with disgust.

 

"You drunken fool. You have no idea what you've done, do you?" she says.

 

That is when Bacchus learns that he has gotten a gay man pregnant with his ex-girlfriend and split him from his new love. 

 

He is the laughing stock of Mount Olympus after that. 

 

\----

 

As the Earthly seasons come and go, enough time passes for Bacchus to realise that Eros planned his downfall.

 

Bacchus had been foolish to trust him, and everybody knows that fertility gods (like Pan) can't be trusted when babies are involved.

 

One day, Bacchus is so upset by Eros' needling, that he is unable to drink a drop of wine the whole day.

 

He seeks out Eros next day. Eros is travelling back to Earth.

 

It is a strangely sober Bacchus that follows Eros to Earth, intending to confront him about his betrayal in a place where none of the other gods can overhear their conversation. Maybe then Eros will tell the truth.

 

Bacchus watches silently as Eros visits a hotel room in _The Salem Inn_ , where a beautiful and strong looking man with dark hair is flirting with another man. He recognises the other man. It is the Will mortal.

 

Bacchus wonders whether the strong young man is the same one that dallied with another man, whilst the Will mortal made a baby with his former love. 

 

He is wondering what business Eros has there, if his First Love's arrow has already been loosed upon this couple.

 

But Eros does not reach for the arrow. He reaches for something else that hums and calls to Bacchus' own nature, with its scent of sex and bacchanals. It is the power of Eros' sexual love. And Eros watches coolly whilst Will and this other man who Will calls "Paul" roll together in the sheets. 

 

It is the first time Bacchus has ever seen Eros wield this kind of power. He usually acts as if he is so above it.

 

Bacchus thinks it's kind of hot.

 

Afterwards, the lovers lie sated on the bed. 

 

There is a knock on the door. 

 

The dark-haired Paul one says, "If we don't answer it, they'll go away."

 

Bacchus glances at Eros' face in profile, and sees the bright anticipation in those icy blue eyes.

 

Bacchus looks out into the hallway.

 

He sees a young man reaching for the door handle. 

 

Bacchus can smell sunlight, dancing, love, the blue sky and the salty Greek sea on this young man, but it is blunted and smothered under a heavy cloak of sadness, anger, and thwarted dreams. 

 

Bacchus sees the ring on his hand. It is a powerful earthly symbol. It shines at him.

 

Bacchus knows this is the husband. He just doesn't know _whose._

 

It doesn't matter. He has to help him.

 

He calls a whisper of his power and the bellboy appears in the hallway, looking at the husband with distinctly sexual interest.

 

"I wouldn't do that if I was you," says the bellboy. "He wouldn't want to be disturbed right now."

 

The husband is persuaded to leave the hotel.

 

Bacchus senses Eros approaching. It makes sense that Eros would want to know the exact reason why the husband didn't enter the hotel room.

 

Bacchus can feel the exact moment when Eros realises he is there. He flinches and clutches at his own buttocks in pain, fleeing back to Mount Olympus. 

 

Bacchus fumes; that cold-eyed bastard just shot him in the ass with an arrow!

 

\----

 

Over the days and evenings that follow, Bacchus dreams of the beautiful little Greek human and smells the Aegean Sea in his fantasies. He goes back to Earth and watches his little Sonny's bright light be extinguished by domestic drudgery and the betrayal by both his loved ones and his business partner.

 

Bacchus is heart-broken when he sees his Sonny crying, after learning of his Will-husband's betrayal and his Paul-almost-husband's role in it. Bacchus mourns his own part in it, wondering whether Sonny would have ever found out if it wasn't for the trickle of Bacchus' sex aspect that sent the bellboy looking for Sonny at his coffee tavern, and inadvertently revealing the truth.

 

If Bacchus could, he would give his Sonny a hundred husbands to choose from, each brighter, stronger and sexier than the last, and let Sonny choose which of them would make him the happiest. Instead, he watches from a distance as his bright little mortal pines over a fickle, self-absorbed mate who will always put his own needs and interests first. 

 

It is then that Bacchus realises that Cupid's arrow did not just pierce his butt - it pierced his heart, too.

 

He did not think that was possible - that Eros' power could put another god's power under such shade. 

 

He'd really had no idea who he was dealing with.

 

He wonders if Eros knew it, and thinks he probably did.

 

He understands Eros' ego now, and his rage at being so wilfully underestimated. In Eros' mind, he probably thinks he should be up there hobnobbing with the big boys - Zeus, Hades, Hera and Poseidon. Instead he's here, rubbing shoulders with harvest and festival gods.

 

Yes, Bacchus understands, but he still thinks Eros is a dick.

 

\----

 

Despite Eros' arrow, Bacchus' own nature begins to reassert itself, and he goes on a pleasure-seeking bender, partying all day and all night with his homies. 

 

Drunk with spirits, joy, and ecstasy, he eventually visits his little Greek earthling again. Sonny's bright spark is even dimmer, and it saddens Bacchus.

 

He doesn't think Cupid's arrow is speaking for him any more when he realises he still feels a kindred spirit for this little Greek, who owns his own drinking establishment, and who speaks ever-so-softly to his own nature. This little human should be smiling, partying, and having a good time. Bacchus senses that he is still capable of it, deep down.

 

It's a tricky thing, though, to go against Eros' power. Bacchus knows now that he is no match for either his power or his scheming. But there is one thing Bacchus does really well. He knows how to show someone a good time. 

 

He is not the God of Revels for nothing. 

 

With Eros' gaze fixed firmly on on his favourite ( _Will_ ) - and believing Bacchus to be weakened - Bacchus realises that now is the time to act. Bacchus does not think Paul will be of any use to him. The Almost-Husband is too bound within Eros' plans.

 

Bacchus will need to look further afield. He pulls at the strings of Sonny's past relationships to see if he can find a suitable helpmate. He is pleasantly surprised when his delving leads him to a gay bar called _The Spot_ , where a tall handsomely proportioned man is chatting with another suitably muscular man at the bar. 

 

Bacchus suits up in his mortal guise.

 

"Hey," he says. "You're Brian, right?"

 

As Bacchus turns on the old college charm, with his come-hither smile and flirty ways, Bacchus can tell that Brian's boon companion, Neil, is interested, but Brian seems strangely ambivalent to the promise of sex and drink that Bacchus is offering.

 

It is only when Brian turns around that Bacchus realises why: _Brian still has one of Cupid's arrows deeply embedded in his back._

 

He abandons his pursuit of Brian for the moment, and heads back to The Mount to talk to Pan.

 

They haven't gotten together since "the incident" but Bacchus says he is willing to forget all about it if Pan does him a small favour, and promises not to tell Eros.

 

Pan, who has no particular loyalty to Eros, agrees. 

 

"It was just about making the baby, man," he says. "I didn't want to sell you down the river. You're my best friend in this place."

 

\----

 

Bacchus returns to Earth and assumes mortal guise as one of Sonny's bartenders.

 

When Sonny feels a little faint in his presence, Bacchus gets him a drink, insisting that he finish it all.

 

Sonny keeps drinking from the glass, but is puzzled by the fact that even though it seems to get lower, it never empties. 

 

When he gets up off the bar stool, Sonny feels a little unsteady, but he has a pleasant bubbly feeling inside. 

 

"Let me drive you home," says Bacchus. "You're unwell." 

 

"I feel fine," says Sonny, "and someone needs to help in the bar." 

 

"I can hold the fort, Boss," says his other employee. 

 

Sonny lets Bacchus lead him out to the car and belt him up in his seat.

 

"We're here," says Bacchus, moments later, and Sonny shakes himself awake. He looks a little surprised to see that they're at _The Spot._  

 

"But -" Sonny starts to protest, but he hears Pan's fluting and dreamily follows Bacchus in. 

 

The club is hopping, and packed with attractive young men with gyrating bodies. Bacchus smells sex and booze. This is just his kind of place.

 

Bacchus sees that Pan has arrived and is getting ready to take over for the DJ.

 

All eyes turn naturally to Bacchus as he strides into the night club and takes the floor. 

 

He is the Master of Ceremonies, the God of Wine, the Lord of Revels ...

… and this is his party.

 

Sonny looks confused, as if he doesn't know him. He is not Sonny's bartender any more. 

 

Sonny turns away and his eyes connect with Brian's.

 

"It's you," Sonny says.

 

Brian is standing a few feet away from Sonny. He can't look away. Neither can Sonny. 

 

Bacchus notices and it makes him smile.

  

Then Pan's musical playlist starts to play. 

 

"Let's get this party started!" shouts Bacchus.

 

The crowd roars.

 

\----

 

By ancient Roman standards, the party at _The Spot_ was pretty tame, but most of the patrons that went there later seemed to agree that a good time was had by all. 

 

Bacchus leaves early. He has other fish to fry, so to speak. 

 

\----

 

The ancient God of Wine and Revels is hanging out in Brian's apartment, watching two handsome young men come together. Bacchus is surveying his handiwork with a great sense of pride and enjoyment. 

 

Pan drops by. He stands next to Bacchus, silently watching Sonny and Brian going at it.

 

Then Pan says, "I brought my flute, as promised. But by the looks of things, I don't think it's going to be needed."

 

"Do you want to go find a pub that's open?" says Bacchus to his old boon companion. "My throat is parched."

 

"In five?" says Pan, who doesn't like missing the end of things.

 

"You're always making me late," says Bacchus, lounging back, waiting for the couple to climax.

 

Later, when he returns to Mount Olympus, Bacchus learns from the other Gods that Eros threw a massive tantrum when he learnt what happened with Sonny and Brian.

 

Bacchus snickers. 

 

Artemis, who usually gives him the cold shoulder, says, "It was clever of you, _Winemaker_ , to use one of Eros' old arrows to avenge the wrong he did to you."

 

Bacchus stays on Earth for a few more nights to wind down and relax. 

 

He follows the sounds of night-time revelry and drunken catcalls to a bar on the edge of town. 

 

As he is relieving himself in the public urinal, he notices a drunkenly scrawled message on the men's room wall. 

 

It says, "For a good time, call-"

 

Bacchus crosses out the name, and writes his own instead. 

 

_For a good time call Bacchus._

 

_I am the God of Wine and Revels._

 

 _Look me up_.

 


End file.
